Vodafone India outperforms global peers in September quarter

New Delhi, India, Dec. 19, 2014: Telecom service provider Vodafone India has out performed its global peers in the April-September period. Vodafone’s spectacular performance came on higher data usage and rising call rates, despite the fact that it is struggling on all fronts in four circles where its permits are about to expire. This has put the company in a must-win situation for airwaves as it lacks any fallback spectrum.

Similar to top player Bharti Airte and Idea Cellular, Vodafone rode over the advantages of lower competition, after the cancellation of 122 telecom licences in 2012 by the apex court of India. Besides, the higher user additions in India.

Limited spectrum in auctions is likely to be held in February would lead to massive business disruption.

According to Marten Pieters, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Vodafone India, “It would be a disaster for existing operators whose hundreds of millions of customers are using the existing spectrum. We think it is wrong to do an auction if there isn’t enough fresh spectrum, which means that if an incumbent is unable to buy back his existing spectrum, he has to close shop.”

Vodafone India will have to strongly bid in Maharashtra & Goa and Rajasthan where it does not have any backup 1800 MHz spectrum. It be noted that Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh (East) circles do not have enough airwaves in the 1800 MHz band. Apart from this, the quality of existing 1800 MHz airwaves in the second group of circles is poor.

Vodafone, which has started to see the impact of data growth in India, posted a 12% increase in organic service revenue for the first half of fiscal 2015 at around Rs 20,642 crore. The operating profit surged nearly 12%. Data revenue rose by 65.5% to Rs 2,552 crore. However, for the London giant, organic service revenue fell by 2.8%, due to competition, regulation and weak economies in Europe.